Airline mistreated visually impaired customers

Campaigners who were fighting to get budget airline Ryanair to change its policies after it booted a group of blind people off a plane today hailed a partial victory.However volunteers at the Norwich-based charity Norfolk and Norwich Association for the Blind, which organised the holiday which sparked the row, today insisted they were still seeking compensation from the airline.The airline yesterday announced it would change its policies after previously insisting it had done nothing wrong.

The group of middle-aged and elderly passengers from Norwich and Great Yarmouth were told to get off their plane at Stansted, because they had not told the airline in advance blind people would be travelling.Yesterday the low-fare Irish airline announced vision-impaired passengers who were travelling with a sighted companion on a one-to-one basis would no longer be required to inform the airline in advance.

And that they would not be included in its limit of four reduced-mobility passengers per flight.But the no-frills carrier added that vision-impaired passengers travellingalone would remain part of the rule.The low-fare Irish airline had always maintained that the group of 12 passengers, a mix of blind, partially sighted and perfect sighted, was above its quota of how many mobility impaired people it could carry.

However Katherine Hurst, a volunteer with the blind charity, which is based in Magpie Road, said she still wanted to see an apology and compensation from the budget airline.And she added she was "amazed" at the airline's sudden change or heart given that they had always maintained they had done nothing wrong.She said the group of travellers had employed a solicitor and barrister to sue Ryanair for breach of contract.

And she said this legal action was being backed by the Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB.)The group of 12 is also going to be meeting East of England MEP Richard Howitt in Brussels next Wednesday to lobby the European Parliament to change the Disability Discrimination Act so that it forces airlines, who are currently exempt, to comply by its rules. In September the 12 travellers, aged 50 to 73, were thrown off their aircraft by the captain at Stansted airport because he said the airline could only take four visually impaired passengers at a time and needed to be informed in advance.

But Mrs Hurst, 43, who organised their holiday, has always maintained that she phoned the airline in advance and told them there would be six blind passengers, three partially sighted and three perfectly sighted on that flight. And she maintains that they did not need staff assistance because they all had companions either partially or fully sighted."Everyone had a sighted companion. Six were completely blind, three were visually impaired which just meant they could not read or drive but they were perfectly capable of getting on and off an aeroplane on their own and three were fully sighted guides.

"Seven of the passengers had to fly later that evening arriving in Italy in the middle of the night, one went home she was so upset and the other four were forced to sleep on the floor of the airport and fly the next morning to Treviso. She said many of these passengers had been left scarred by the "humiliating experience.The mother-of-two, who lives in Unthank Road, Norwich, said it had been a devastating experience for all involved.

"We have written to Ryanair and they have never written back or offered us any compensation. They have never spoken to us – they have only spoken through the media."This is a fantastic victory for us but I still think Ryanair should have the courtesy to contact us. I think they have been through an awful lot and it would be nice to get some compensation."

Ryanair's Caroline Green said: "This is a common-sense change, which follows an incident where a group of vision-impaired travellers were not able to travel because the aircraft safety limit for reduced mobility travellers was exceeded."